Category Archives: Steampunk Ghostbusters

I am extremely fortunate to live in a city with a vibrant Steampunk Community. I am even more fortunate to have made a lot of new friends within the community, while at the same time reconnecting with an old friend from school and discovering a shared love of the Steampunk Aesthetic. One of my ‘new’ friends is Matt the Tinkerer; he is a new friend only in the sense that I met him and his family through the South-East Queensland Steampunk community. Matt is an inventor, and he designed and constructed his Steampunk Ghostbuster proton pack, and my own, and the one his fiancée Colleen wears. He assisted the other Steampunk Ghostbusters with their equipment, which is why our equipment looks so authentic.

Some people have approached me and asked to purchase my pack. The answer will always be ‘no’, because it is :

A work of art by an inventive genius;

Irreplaceable; and

You should make your own.

To assist in designing your own proton pack, here is a labelled original pack from the original movie.

You can see that my pack lacks a lot of this detail … because I am a middle-aged woman who can’t really carry around too much weight on my back while wearing heeled boots. You can see that Matt’s pack is much larger, more detailed, and much, much heavier. When you are designing your pack, you should take weight constraints into account. The male members of my team always have sore backs after a night in costume. They look amazing, but they pay for their commitment to their art.

Below are some other Steampunked proton packs.

Steampunk Ghostbusters proton-pack by James Odinson Mclardy

An assortment of proton packs. As you can see, you can get fairly creative but you should still be recognisably a Ghostbuster.

I may be a tad biased, but I like Matt’s interpretation better than this.

One of the proton packs used by the League of Steam.

Of course, not everyone is as creative or clever as Matt the Tinkerer.Of course, it also helps that Matt has the love and support of Colleen. But half the fun is giving it a go. You can’t make a hash of it, because it is your interpretation!